The Globe and Mail has suspended marquee columnist Leah McLaren for a week.
A source told the Star that McLaren, who wrote about her attempt to breastfeed Tory Leadership candidate Michael Chong’s baby without his knowledge and at a time when she was not lactating herself, has been forbidden to comment on her controversial column or on her suspension.
Calls and e-mails to the newspaper were not immediately returned Thursday. McLaren told the Star by email on Thursday that she could not comment.
The column was posted briefly to the Globe and Mail’s website on March 22, but was subsequently removed. The column was “accidentally” posted online by editors before it was finished, the source told the Star.

Now comes the fun part. Why exactly was she suspended? If nobody’s allowed to talk about it we may never know, and that’s a problem. If punishment was handed down simply because she confessed to something that isn’t criminal but falls somewhere between probably and absolutely morally wrong and the Globe felt it needed to express its displeasure and send a message, fine. But if what prompted the entire thing was the uproar it caused after the fact, then suspending her is kind of bullshit. If all of this really is the fault of a slippery fingered editor, if you must suspend someone, suspend that guy. But if that’s what’s going on here, the right thing to do would be to let McLaren either defend her work or walk it back. Having her mysteriously go sit in the corner isn’t going to make this go away any faster, it’s only going to raise more questions.